Changing the Guard in Black America

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“The Obama administration is determined to escalate and expand the national counter-insurgency police mission begun in the late Sixties in response to the Black Liberation Movement.”

The “miracle” that so many Black Americans wept with joy to behold in January, 2009, has evaporated in totally predictable increments over the past six years. (We at BAR did, in fact, predict the general outlines of the debacle, long before the “The Great Black Hajj” that brought a million African Americans to the national mall, in Washington, to witness Barack Obama’s first swearing in). The advent of a Black-led, center-right Democratic federal administration has worked no substantive change in the trajectory of U.S. society. Obama’s first term confirmed that Blacks would continue to be firmly rooted at the bottom of the economic muck, with Black median household wealth shriveling to one-twentieth that of whites – a point from which there is no possibility of rescue absent full-blown revolution.

Obama’s second term was set in stone in 2013, when the U.S. Justice Department said there was “insufficient evidence” to bring federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman after the vigilante was acquitted in the death of Trayvon Martin. That’s when previously rock-solid Black support for the First Non-White President began to grow brittle, like shale ground down under a glacier. The rockslide began the next year with the killing of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. Yet, as early as October, fully a month before the racist prosecutor in St. Louis County subverted his own grand jury probe of Brown’s death, unnamed “officials” and “lawyers” for the U.S. Justice Department were leaking to the press that “the evidence so far did not support civil rights charges” against Officer Darren Wilson.

The leaks kept on coming, even as Attorney General Eric Holder continued the investigatory charade. Last week’s re-re-re-affirmation leak to the New York Times leaves only Holder himself maintaining the formalistic pretense that the case remains open. As veteran activist and BAR editor and columnist Marsha Coleman-Adebayo writes in the current issue, “We now know what to expect from the Obama administration – nothing.”

“Obama has done more to militarize local police than any of his predecessors.”

What Obama/Holder actually offer are “sweet-nothings” – reluctant and peripheral reforms such as Holder’s minimalist retreat from police highway robbery-style civil forfeiture seizures of cash and property from people “suspected” of criminal activity; executive orders on drug sentencing that are not binding on future administrations; increased, yet temporary, oversight of local police departments through consent decrees; and support for re-passage of Rep. Bobby Scott’s legislation requiring police departments to report officer shootings of civilians, which Congress had allowed to expire in 2006.

All of these measures fall within a “bipartisan” consensus, very much including the Republican libertarian Right, that is willing to modestly scale back public spending on incarceration – often through prison privatization – while increasing funding, equipment and technology for policing and “intelligence” gathering at all levels. Obama has done more to militarize local police than any of his predecessors; the Pentagon gives half a billion dollars a year in equipment to cops and Homeland Security transfers twice as much. Despite the worldwide furor over the storm trooper spectacle in Ferguson, Obama’s sham “demilitarization” proposals actually emphasize increased training of local police in the use of military weapons – for “safety” purposes – which will inevitably result in an even more intimate police/cop relationship.

(Let no one forget that 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed police militarization in rejecting the Grayson Amendment against Pentagon transfers to cops, in June of last year.)

“Obama’s sham ‘demilitarization’ proposals actually emphasize increased training of local police in the use of military weapons.”

The conclusion is obvious: the Obama administration is determined to escalate and expand the national counter-insurgency police mission begun in the late Sixties in response to the Black Liberation Movement, a policy that has led to the establishment of a Black Mass Incarceration State. The summer-to-winter Black Lives Matter campaign is the long-delayed resistance to this Black Mass Incarceration State that has murdered thousands of Michael Browns and incarcerated millions of his brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and grandparents over more than two generations. The election of a Black president and attorney general only gave added momentum and legitimacy to the diabolical project.

The fact that masses of Blacks now know, as Marsha Coleman-Adebayo writes, that Obama will provide no relief from hyper-surveillance, militarized occupation and arbitrary murder at the hands of police, is the most important contribution of the nascent movement, to date. The purpose of framing and pressing demands is not just to force Power to take the desired action: in this case, to indict Darren Wilson for violating Michael Brown’s constitutional right to live. Demands, even when rejected, force Power to show its true colors, to unambiguously reveal its real nature. The movement has unmasked Obama as the Oppressor-in-Chief and exposed the Black Misleadership Class as fawning accomplices to the dehumanization of the rest of us. It is a lesson that had to be learned through blood and pain, in the heat of confrontation with State, itself. Thanks to the young movement, Black folks understand, in ways they did not before, that the established Black “leadership” is a foul accretion of 45 years of corruption and self-aggrandizement, which must be rejected and replaced. The process has already begun. That’s pretty good work for less than half a year in the life of a people.

If we're not observant, all 43 million of us are going to be locked up in "America'a Slave Progeny Zoo" and the YT's will be charging $20.00 a piece admission to the entire world to observe each and every one of us in all our "blackness glory". White man's nothing but SATANIC when it applies to Africans, nothing but!!!!! African skin darkness drives EVERYONE out of their damn minds, including some Africans, here and there.

You know what? This is what I say to those who continually criticize my president! Fock yall! Haters!!! Piss me off. Cuz I know the real deal. This black man has done something NO OTHER BLACK MAN HAS DONE. That is play massa at his game. And won! Hal. Lay, Lu. Yer. Look over the shores my black friends.....not one black person have the kind of POWER my president has at the moment. See? A lotta blackfolks still have that milky film over their eyes....thinking that the eradication of black folks STOPPED when Obama became president. How naiive. They missed the focking POINT!!!

And I'ma gonna repeat the point. Which is....the path of blacks from slavery to the white house [in this racist country] is unprecedented worldwide! WORLDWIDE!!! . Regardless of the fact that many black folks don't get along....we got along long enough to put him in power-which should have been an awakening moment for us but it wasn't cuz why? We were STILL killing each other in a country where the President is black. How smart. So for those naysayers to keep coming up with bullshyte about my president how about talking about the real things that are going in our country. Hum?

And please remove the white milky film from yall's eyes....cuz my president is not a magician, is not a messiah, he does not have the capacity to make it all go away, he doesn't have the ability in 6 years to undo 400 years of wrong doing including racism. He's just a MAN. And he doesn't have that unrealistic power. Black folks think Obama can do what he wants in office. Again....how naiive. This is the white man's position-being the president. Has always been. So how is ONE black man gonna come in and take over in 6 years? He can't. Hell in 6 years, that's kindergarten status. So how will he be able to be in full control of everything in 6 years when massa has been doing it for 400 years? Doesn't make ANY common sense.....but! That's all black naysayers talk about. Aint listening cuz one I know it takes more than one drop of water to crack a rock. He's one drop of water to massa's big giant rock. And I also know black folks been watching too many unrealistic hero movies to think he would able to accomplish long range goals in six years that took civil rights advocates 100 years to achieve after slavery. Naiive! As why these SAME BLACK FOLKS can watch blacks kill each other and do nothing but the minute the klan police kill one of us...then it's a riot. I still can't wrap my head around that logic.

Yes, my president is a hero....not for being the master slave for the country....for blacks and whites but! For showing HUMANS beings how to get it done right. To show massa that blacks can do the SAME exact thang as whites....even become the President of the United States. And I don't know about yall...I mean while observing the horrific genocide of black people on the other side of the world....but! My president is the TOP model for excellence and represents what a person can do when his/her mind is set on progress, And for our kids? That's huge. All this other yak yak stuff of the so-called black watch dogs? Is nothing more than PURE milky film BULLSHYTE and mind sabotage, But!

"You know what? This is what I say to those who continually criticize my president! Fock yall! Haters!!! Piss me off. Cuz I know the real deal. This black man has done something NO OTHER BLACK MAN HAS DONE. That is play massa at his game. And won! Hal. Lay, Lu. Yer. Look over the shores my black friends.....not one black person have the kind of POWER my president has at the moment. See? A lotta blackfolks still have that milky film over their eyes....thinking that the eradication of black folks STOPPED when Obama became president. How naiive. They missed the focking POINT!!!"

Thank you! Point is well taken. I have a good friend in NYC who constantly lambasts me because he believes I (like most black Americans he states) have given President Obama a free pass for "no other reason" than having black skin. This is wrong. I feel President Obama has made some missteps and there are areas where he should improve. I was watching Morning Joe a while ago and they were criticizing the president. But the criticism was not like the stale overwrought demonization that is standard at FOX news. It was honest and fair. They listed areas where he could do better but they never slammed the man face down into the concrete as someone like Sean Hannity (a psychotic hater!), Tavis Smiley, Bill O'Reilly or Cornell West. None of the caustic blather, gross exaggerations and nefarious spin of the aforementioned.

I read half way through this article before I stopped. I could easily shred the weak bombast and prevarication of the writer. Not going to waste the time doing so. Yes, there are areas of improvement Mr. Obama needs but I refuse to give any credence and support to the nonstop right (and left) wing trashing of this man. A lot is political but in my opinion, I would say no less than half of it is race based. The idea of a black man being POTUS is more than many white Americans can stomach...

Sure, Prez Obama is but a politician ushering in more of the US police state. When the article states that POTUS Obama is the indirect culprit behind the mass imprisonment of black folks like nothing else and this is supposed to be obvious, all I can do is SMH. That's a stretch. But yeah, he is the greatest surveillance president of all time and that means he has taken a stand against against human rights and freedom.He serves the Rulers. He lacks the greatness of a Malcolm X or MLK.

"The conclusion is obvious: the Obama administration is determined to escalate and expand the national counter-insurgency police mission begun in the late Sixtiesin response to the Black Liberation Movement, a policy that has led to the establishment of a Black Mass Incarceration State.”

You know what? This is what I say to those who continually criticize my president! Fock yall! Haters!!! Piss me off. Cuz I know the real deal. This black man has done something NO OTHER BLACK MAN HAS DONE. That is play massa at his game. And won! Hal. Lay, Lu. Yer. Look over the shores my black friends.....not one black person have the kind of POWER my president has at the moment. See? A lotta blackfolks still have that milky film over their eyes....thinking that the eradication of black folks STOPPED when Obama became president. How naiive. They missed the focking POINT!!!

And I'ma gonna repeat the point. Which is....the path of blacks from slavery to the white house [in this racist country] is unprecedented worldwide! WORLDWIDE!!! . Regardless of the fact that many black folks don't get along....we got along long enough to put him in power-which should have been an awakening moment for us but it wasn't cuz why? We were STILL killing each other in a country where the President is black. How smart. So for those naysayers to keep coming up with bullshyte about my president how about talking about the real things that are going in our country. Hum?

And please remove the white milky film from yall's eyes....cuz my president is not a magician, is not a messiah, he does not have the capacity to make it all go away, he doesn't have the ability in 6 years to undo 400 years of wrong doing including racism. He's just a MAN. And he doesn't have that unrealistic power. Black folks think Obama can do what he wants in office. Again....how naiive. This is the white man's position-being the president. Has always been. So how is ONE black man gonna come in and take over in 6 years? He can't. Hell in 6 years, that's kindergarten status. So how will he be able to be in full control of everything in 6 years when massa has been doing it for 400 years? Doesn't make ANY common sense.....but! That's all black naysayers talk about. Aint listening cuz one I know it takes more than one drop of water to crack a rock. He's one drop of water to massa's big giant rock. And I also know black folks been watching too many unrealistic hero movies to think he would able to accomplish long range goals in six years that took civil rights advocates 100 years to achieve after slavery. Naiive! As why these SAME BLACK FOLKS can watch blacks kill each other and do nothing but the minute the klan police kill one of us...then it's a riot. I still can't wrap my head around that logic.

Yes, my president is a hero....not for being the master slave for the country....for blacks and whites but! For showing HUMANS beings how to get it done right. To show massa that blacks can do the SAME exact thang as whites....even become the President of the United States. And I don't know about yall...I mean while observing the horrific genocide of black people on the other side of the world....but! My president is the TOP model for excellence and represents what a person can do when his/her mind is set on progress, And for our kids? That's huge. All this other yak yak stuff of the so-called black watch dogs? Is nothing more than PURE milky film BULLSHYTE and mind sabotage, But!

Yeah, I've said the same. If you study how he managed to become the POTUS, forgetting for a moment your opinions on his views, anything you can pick up is going to be empowering! POTUS SHOWED US HOW TO IT! His how to get power example should be studied IN DEPTH because he CONQUERED like no on else!

You know what? This is what I say to those who continually criticize my president! Fock yall! Haters!!! Piss me off. Cuz I know the real deal. This black man has done something NO OTHER BLACK MAN HAS DONE. That is play massa at his game. And won! Hal. Lay, Lu. Yer. Look over the shores my black friends.....not one black person have the kind of POWER my president has at the moment. See? A lotta blackfolks still have that milky film over their eyes....thinking that the eradication of black folks STOPPED when Obama became president. How naiive. They missed the focking POINT!!!

And I'ma gonna repeat the point. Which is....the path of blacks from slavery to the white house [in this racist country] is unprecedented worldwide! WORLDWIDE!!! . Regardless of the fact that many black folks don't get along....we got along long enough to put him in power-which should have been an awakening moment for us but it wasn't cuz why? We were STILL killing each other in a country where the President is black. How smart. So for those naysayers to keep coming up with bullshyte about my president how about talking about the real things that are going in our country. Hum?

And please remove the white milky film from yall's eyes....cuz my president is not a magician, is not a messiah, he does not have the capacity to make it all go away, he doesn't have the ability in 6 years to undo 400 years of wrong doing including racism. He's just a MAN. And he doesn't have that unrealistic power. Black folks think Obama can do what he wants in office. Again....how naiive. This is the white man's position-being the president. Has always been. So how is ONE black man gonna come in and take over in 6 years? He can't. Hell in 6 years, that's kindergarten status. So how will he be able to be in full control of everything in 6 years when massa has been doing it for 400 years? Doesn't make ANY common sense.....but! That's all black naysayers talk about. Aint listening cuz one I know it takes more than one drop of water to crack a rock. He's one drop of water to massa's big giant rock. And I also know black folks been watching too many unrealistic hero movies to think he would able to accomplish long range goals in six years that took civil rights advocates 100 years to achieve after slavery. Naiive! As why these SAME BLACK FOLKS can watch blacks kill each other and do nothing but the minute the klan police kill one of us...then it's a riot. I still can't wrap my head around that logic.

Yes, my president is a hero....not for being the master slave for the country....for blacks and whites but! For showing HUMANS beings how to get it done right. To show massa that blacks can do the SAME exact thang as whites....even become the President of the United States. And I don't know about yall...I mean while observing the horrific genocide of black people on the other side of the world....but! My president is the TOP model for excellence and represents what a person can do when his/her mind is set on progress, And for our kids? That's huge. All this other yak yak stuff of the so-called black watch dogs? Is nothing more than PURE milky film BULLSHYTE and mind sabotage, But!

Yeah, I've said the same. If you study how he managed to become the POTUS, forgetting for a moment your opinions on his views, anything you can pick up is going to be empowering! POTUS SHOWED US HOW TO IT! His how to get power example should be studied IN DEPTH because he CONQUERED like no on else!

There is no doubt about how strategic President Obama is and his keen management to become POTUS. Apparently one area of his stratagem is convincing the white power structure that as a Black Democratic President he would indeed serve the white power structure as previous Presidents did.

And to use Hope and Change as a Black Presidential candidate was genius to get people out to vote for him because the conscious masses was indeed yearning and ready for Change, to at least challenge how this country is controlled by Wall Street, transnational corporations, the Prison Industrial Complex, the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy and plutocrats who own and run them.

This country is poised more than anytime in its history to be bought out with the pocket change of oligarchs, a few 100 billionaire, imperialist criminals of the ultra conservative and white supremacist persuasion. Perhaps in just a few years Oligarchy will be so entrenched the only thing that could portend Hope and Change is Massive Social Resistance or total collapse of the economic system that will SHOCK ordinary citizens into awareness and action toward establishing a government that actually serves all people and do better in living up to the mantras and axioms enshrouded in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

There's a certain someone up in the AAorg. house that most of us can't stomach. So much so, that it brings on the feeling of pukerization. Must be the same feeling white folks have about handsome President Obama. Too bad they didn't have the feeling before that Cotton Pickers' trek to Africa. All the problems THAT COULD HAVE ALLEVIATED.

Brotha Momentum: Yeah, President Obama have some glowing PERSONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS I give him that. And he has a beautiful African American family. That pretty much sums it up

Well...that's enough. Cuz the way our black community is going? We NEED someone to model to us WHAT A NORMAL family looks like. Just keepin it real my brotha. Cuz FAMILY is the foundation to success. And like many blacks who come from a fatherless home....this is HUGE to see a person progress through it all and end up at the top of the game. Better this than Suge Knight. Or Kanye West. Or the thug life that is getting all the publicity on what its like to be black in America....and lets not forget all these black reality shows that twist our image so much that black kids in real life don't KNOW how to behave in public or understand the importance of education. So for me? I'll Obama[and other black figures like him] for $50 Alex. But!

Brotha DK wrote: Yeah, I've said the same. If you study how he managed to become the POTUS, forgetting for a moment your opinions on his views, anything you can pick up is going to be empowering! POTUS SHOWED US HOW TO IT! His how to get power example should be studied IN DEPTH because he CONQUERED like no on else!

That's all I'm saying my brotha. Look! We gotta STOP entertaining massa-we are not slaves anymore. We gotta look inward and find a way to recover our DNA of excellence and push it out. Resurrect it! Cuz we have a legacy of brilliance. We are the original HUMAN BEINGS. Not massa. Or his boys. Both derived from neanderthals. So they don't have the ability to do nothing but STEAL and KILL. Black folks need to wake up. The window is closing. And it is closing FAST, But!.

There is no doubt about how strategic President Obama is and his keen management to become POTUS. Apparently one area of his stratagem is convincing the white power structure that as a Black Democratic President he would indeed serve the white power structure as previous Presidents did.

Whatever it took to get in there. Right? King was off about 20 years when he said a black president will run the white house in 25 years. The rock was cracking back then.

And to use Hope and Change as a Black Presidential candidate was genius to get people out to vote for him because the conscious masses was indeed yearning and ready for Change, to at least challenge how this country is controlled by Wall Street, transnational corporations, the Prison Industrial Complex, the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy and plutocrats who own and run them.

Exactly my brotha. Cuz the hope was at that time for us: We hope to have a black president some day[to show that we as black people are just as capable just as worthy as whites]. And the change is... from the tradition WHITE male president....to a new wave image: A black president. So both were achieved. Cuz why? Both happened. Something the Native America couldn't do in their OWN land. And that's real.

And I think it is premature for black people to assume that Obama can wipe away all the wrongdoings of massa....our history in this country shows it took 100 years after slavery to obtain citizenship and the ability to vote as a citizen. To assume that Obama has the super ability or magical power to influence a 400 year white mindset to instanteously jump on the side of the former black slave? Is far reaching. As why it hasn't worked. Racism, self-entitlement are learned behaviors-can't break down those doors in 6 years. If so police bruality i.e. KKK wouldn't be so rampant in disrespecting black life, black people wouldn't be socially tormented by white folks in this day and age all while having a BLACK president in office.

See those old-time racists are either dead or in old folks homes....but! There is a NEW generation of racism passed down that is highly visible in media and government. And we think one black president is gonna eliminate alladat? I'm not buying it my brotha. As why militarized police continues to assemble. As why the wheels of equality continues to turn VERY slowly. They say we have it. But white behavior says we don't and NEVER will. So the other thing about hope is...."look what we have done in the midst of the racial fire...."and the change is....."unstoppable. Massa said we couldn't do it but we did. Being free and having a black president." And that is the SEED my brotha. That is the SEED. And what comes from there? Is vision!!!! Which will link prosperity. Advancement. And most importantly, cultural survival! Cuz without both[hope and change]...like other blackfolks in lands afar....the people WILL perish. But!

There is no doubt about how strategic President Obama is and his keen management to become POTUS. Apparently one area of his stratagem is convincing the white power structure that as a Black Democratic President he would indeed serve the white power structure as previous Presidents did.

Whatever it took to get in there. Right? King was off about 20 years when he said a black president will run the white house in 25 years. The rock was cracking back then.

And to use Hope and Change as a Black Presidential candidate was genius to get people out to vote for him because the conscious masses was indeed yearning and ready for Change, to at least challenge how this country is controlled by Wall Street, transnational corporations, the Prison Industrial Complex, the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy and plutocrats who own and run them.

Exactly my brotha. Cuz the hope was at that time for us: We hope to have a black president some day[to show that we as black people are just as capable just as worthy as whites]. And the change is... from the tradition WHITE male president....to a new wave image: A black president. So both were achieved. Cuz why? Both happened. Something the Native America couldn't do in their OWN land. And that's real.

And I think it is premature for black people to assume that Obama can wipe away all the wrongdoings of massa....our history in this country shows it took 100 years after slavery to obtain citizenship and the ability to vote as a citizen. To assume that Obama has the super ability or magical power to influence a 400 year white mindset to instanteously jump on the side of the former black slave? Is far reaching. As why it hasn't worked. Racism, self-entitlement are learned behaviors-can't break down those doors in 6 years. If so police bruality i.e. KKK wouldn't be so rampant in disrespecting black life, black people wouldn't be socially tormented by white folks in this day and age all while having a BLACK president in office.

See those old-time racists are either dead or in old folks homes....but! There is a NEW generation of racism passed down that is highly visible in media and government. And we think one black president is gonna eliminate alladat? I'm not buying it my brotha. As why militarized police continues to assemble. As why the wheels of equality continues to turn VERY slowly. They say we have it. But white behavior says we don't and NEVER will. So the other thing about hope is...."look what we have done in the midst of the racial fire...."and the change is....."unstoppable. Massa said we couldn't do it but we did. Being free and having a black president." And that is the SEED my brotha. That is the SEED. And what comes from there? Is vision!!!! Which will link prosperity. Advancement. And most importantly, cultural survival! Cuz without both[hope and change]...like other blackfolks in lands afar....the people WILL perish. But!

Kocolicious, President OBAMA is a white man's SERVANT. That is important to see, that fact that he is black and by doing nothing regarding existing policies that works against black people. He supports and fortify the white power structure that hurts and harms blacks. And makes it seem that current policies appear moral and fair because it is a black President supporting them instead of working against them. He says one thing and then does another like any good racist Republican would.

I refuse to gloss over the harm President Obama has done by not fighting hard for voting rights and fighting hard against the criminal justice system, he is now proposing free trade agreements (TPP or Trans Pacific Partnership) that will send more jobs out of the country and only make the Oligarchy richer and hurt blacks even more and create even a wider income and wealth disparity. More millionaires created and concentrated at the very tippy top but at the expense of common US Americans.

Yeah he is a black president but the WRONG black president. He is great for rich people, he does not fight for the common people, he does not go bare knuckles for common people and he ignores the plight of black people. All he has for black people are lectures... He is not a leader, he is a SERVANT.

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